(CNS): Three people who were arrested in December in connection with the death of two-year-old Alissady Powell on Cayman Brac in July 2022 and remain on bail have not been charged, but a file has been sent to prosecutors, the police have confirmed. The three individuals were the last people to see the little girl alive. They include her mother, Yvane Dixon-Powell, even though she was instrumental in getting the police to change their investigation from an unexplained death to a murder inquiry.
Responding to questions from CNS, a spokesperson for the RCIPS confirmed that the three people arrested were bailed before Christmas. In late December, the case file was submitted to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions for advice on charges.
The investigation into the child’s death was not treated as a murder until a report by a private independent forensic investigator, who was hired by Dixon-Powell in 2023, was submitted to the police.
The RCIPS then conducted its own review, which led to a switch in the direction of the inquiry. Various experts have now concluded that the child died as a result of suffocation or strangulation and not drowning, as had been the medical opinion offered following the first post-mortem.
However, the police have denied that the initial erroneous conclusions over the cause of death delayed the lengthy investigation, which has now been going on for two and a half years.
“The investigation, from the beginning, has always been open and ongoing, and involved various lines of enquiry in the search for evidence that might reveal exactly what happened that night,” the RCIPS told CNS recently. “It is worth noting that any specialists required by the police must be engaged and secured via processes that will uphold the integrity of their findings, and this takes time, especially if there is a need to bring them to Cayman.”
The RCIPS said that they had reviewed the report provided by the child’s mother and provided it to an independent pathologist for comparison with all other findings. The case had been treated as an unexplained death “with all appropriate lines of enquiry being conducted” until the results of the independent review of the investigation by the RCIPS were concluded. At that point, the status changed to murder.
At a press briefing in December, the police said that the three individuals had been arrested on suspicion of three different offences: child neglect, accessory after the fact, and murder. However, at the briefing, the senior officers did not say what evidence had led to the arrests, only noting that the three people were all in the apartment with Alissady before she was reported missing.
